Twelve of the people on stage at Halfstep 2027 are announced today. They work at software teams, a hotel group, a museum, a gallery and a bicycle maker, and every one of them agreed to talk about something they have actually shipped. Together they cover 17 sessions: six workshops on 18 March and eleven talks on 19 March.
Design
Four designers cover the decisions behind the interface.
Priya Raman, head of design at Tessary, opens the conference with “Interfaces are made of decisions”.
Maya Okafor, design systems lead at Kestrow, gives “Design reviews that end with a decision” and a workshop on tokens that survive a rebrand.
Aisha Khan, content designer at Saltmere, on writing interface copy with engineers.
Tomás Silva, principal product designer at Vantlow, on naming things in a design system, plus a workshop on designing the empty state first.
Engineering
Four engineers cover what happens once the design meets real users.
Daniel Reyes, staff front-end engineer at Tessary, asks for fewer breakpoints and better layouts, and runs a workshop on container queries in a real design system.
Jonas Weber, front-end lead at Orrin Cycles, leads “Forms that don’t make people give up”.
Hannah Brooks, performance engineer at Vantlow, on the slow page nobody owns.
Marcus Chen, senior accessibility engineer at Pellmoor Hotels, shares lessons from a checkout rebuild.
Craft
Four makers work close to the file, the type and the prototype.
Sofia Lindqvist, type designer at Wrenfold, on letterforms in the browser, plus a workshop on drawing type for small screens.
Lucas Moreau, head of motion at Ferrow Gallery, teaches motion you can ship in a day and closes the conference at 15:00.
Oliver Bennett, design engineer at Hollin Museum, on pixel-perfect handoff without the PDF.
Elena Petrova, interaction designer at Kestrow, on prototyping with real data.
What is still open
Twelve names are not the whole programme. A few slots stay open and we will fill them over the winter. The schedule already shows the room and time of every session above, and you can star the ones you want and download them as a calendar file.
